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Issue 3, Vol. CXXXIII, February 23, 2015
Reflections on Vietnam Joseph Barkoff
Sports Photo Editor Private First Class Bruce Thompson, 10 Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, proudly received a letter around Thanksgiving 1967 from President Lyndon B. Johnson. The letter said “greetings” and informed Thompson to report for induction into the Army Dec. 7. After completing basic training and jump school, Thompson went home for Christmas and broke his jaw. With his injury he could no longer make the jump out of an airplane, so he was re-assigned to tank school. In the Navy Hospital in New York with a broken jaw. Thompson was surrounded by 800 broken Marines, home from Vietnam. He remembers telling his girlfriend he would never be like them. He was in the Army; it was different. Thompson, like a lot of young men and women, was drafted into service for the ongoing Vietnam conflict, with no idea of the personal repercussions of war, or the unwelcome response he and other vets would receive upon their homecoming. “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.” That is the motto worn on t-shirts, bumper stickers and in the hearts of all who had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the Vietnam War. That motto is perpetuated in Jill KellyMoore’s humanities course on American culture in which she immerses students in a debate that has raged on campus for 10 years now. The debate has been going on for longer, but Kelly-Moore brings a unique experience for every
student brave, lucky and caring enough to engage in it. “I do it for them [the veterans],” KellyMoore said. “It is the vets’ show, and the students must participate.” Kelly-Moore split the class in half. One side is pro-war, one is anti-war and, for the purposes of the class, the student’s actual feelings don’t matter. Like any debate or critical thinking process, students must research their assigned tasks with the goal to present the delegated side of the argument. It’s a unique educational experience because, unlike any other part of the curriculum, real Vietnam veterans judge the debate. In the weeks before the debate, the veterans spend a class period sharing their experiences about the war and their trip back home after their own one-year tour. Kelly-Moore’s exercise helps both parties involved. The vets benefit by being able to speak about their plight and the students learn from the vets’ first-hand experiences the truth of war. Both benefit because the injustice is shared, like a burden, but a burden of knowledge granting those involved the wisdom to not careen down the same path and repeat history. For the vets, every new branch of memories and experiences they share with students is a release that lightens the load they carry. “In basic training, we used to march to the beer hall. In Airborne AIT we would jog to the beer hall, and in tank training we used to take the beer with us,” Thompson said, offering a brief moment of
Joseph Barkoff / Oak Leaf
Bruce Thompson reads from his manual the defintion of a free fire zone, describing his tour of duty in Vietnam for Jill Kelly-Moore’s humanities class Nov. 11 at SRJC.
levity before reading from the Field Manual the definition of his new home. A “free fire zone” is a little place in hell. The manual states a free fire zone ”is an American military term used to designate and define a geographical area in which all life is considered the enemy. Any humans or animals in this zone are fair game for all of the organic weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces, and are destroyed immediately upon detection. Plant and marine life are also considered hostile and subject to repeated defoliation by Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals.” Early in his tour, sitting atop his APC, Thompson saw a Vietnamese man get up and run from cover. He took aim, followed the target and did what he was trained to do. “Bam! You could almost see the bullet go. Hit the guy in the back as he’s running and his arms go out and his head goes back and he plops down on the ground. He bounced once,” Thompson said. If the man was Viet Cong, Thompson’s platoon would find his AK-47 rifle laying where he ran from. If he was a farmer just trying to sneak back into his ancestral homeland, the platoon would find nothing. The 10th Cavalry would still place an AK rifle next to the dead Vietnamese man and take a Polaroid. They were to document every kill they made. The war was about body count, Thompson explained. To make camp in the free fire zone, the squad would all fire their weapons facing out in a circle for a minute, ceasing at the
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BSU hosts ‘Black Lives Matter’ JoshuOne Barnes Investigative Reporter A Black Lives Matter panel offered solutions on community policing including police wearing mandatory body cameras and increased public oversight Feb. 19 in the Bertolini Student center. Lenita Marie Johnson moderated the panel and included leaders from the legal and law enforcement community. A diverse gathering of Santa Rosa Junior College students, administrators, community members and two SRJC Board of Trustee members attended the event, hosted by the SRJC Black Student Union. Bay Area reggae artist Sky I opened the panel with his song, “Can’t Blame The Youths,” a tribute to 13-year-old Andy Lopez, whom a Sonoma County Sheriff ’s deputy shot seven times in October 2013. After the performance, there was a discussion about how to combat the police’s apparent lack of respect to black, brown and poor youths. “Police in this country shoot and kill civilians, particularly black males, in far too high of numbers,” Johnson said. “All of those in law enforcement must be honest enough to admit that much of our history is not pretty.” Johnson asked the panelists why they had decided to join the panel and discuss what he called “the American legacy called racism.” Panelist Jeanne Buckley, retired Superior Court Commissioner and member of the Sonoma County Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force, said that due to the proliferation of cameras, both on the police and the public, there is a much better view of what is happening in our communities. “Now that the officers have cameras and people with their cellphones have cameras, we can see what we’ve been talking about for years and years and years and years. And it’s kind of nice to know that we haven’t been crazy all this time,” Buckley said. Brien Farrell, another panelist who sits on the Task Force, said the community’s
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The Oak Leaf ’s own Haley Bollinger shares her experiences of hitting rock bottom and facing addiction.
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Drew Sheets/ Oak Leaf
Pastor H. Lee Turner joins the panel because he has a heart for people and the community.